people on the internet who go out of their way to argue
What is it that goes through the minds of people that compels them to log on to the internet and just keep... on... arguing? Desperate to get the last word in, apparently incapable of reflecting on their own compulsion to try to lecture others.
Like, imagine you played a game, and you didn't like it, so you stopped playing and left a review - just like you've done for hundreds of other games - explaining why you didn't like it, both as a note to your future self and to provide a data point for other people to help them make their buying decision. Maybe you found the dialog pretentious, and mentioned it reminded you of another game whose dialog was also pretentious and that you persevered with anyway only to end up underwhelmed, so you didn't want to waste your time again. Imagine you drop in a quip about how completing that game might have felt more rewarding if you'd had a friend circle of chinstrokers who held the title in great acclaim, and that the people who appreciated that game would probably enjoy this one too.
And then you get a reply from a random person on the internet saying that your hateful attitude and lack of skill has prevented you from understanding the game's true meaning.
The irony of me commenting on the pretentiousness of a highbrow game only to have someone immediately drop in to condescendingly explain how i was too ignorant to understand the game properly was not lost on me, so i said so. Which led to that person coming back again, and again, and again - three days in a row now - each time going into even greater depth about how brilliant the game was and how i have lumped "literally everybody" who played it into a single group who i have unfairly mocked and onto whom i am projecting my own insecurities and bla bla bla... They seem to have finally arrived at a conclusion today that it is i, amw, the sanctimonious blowhard, who takes computer games far too seriously, and hates entire segments of the population, and clearly i must be this way because somebody hurt me. I mean. Okay?! And all this over a very tame dig at hipsters that i dropped into a two-paragraph review FOR A TOTALLY DIFFERENT FUCKING GAME.
Like, what possesses a person to see a computer game review - one of literally thousands, maybe tens of thousands, that are submitted every day - and decide that this is the crusade that must be fought?
Somebody is wrong on the internet!
The weird thing is that i really think this person believes that they truly are the enlightened party. They seem convinced that i am a close-minded bigot who has committed the cardinal sin of spreading hateful generalizations online. And it's like... bro. I wasn't the one who was scrolling through other people's reviews looking to pick a fight. When i see a review i disagree with, i just shrug and keep scrolling. Who are you white knighting for? Who fucking cares? Nobody is going to read the comment thread under a short review for an indie game that came out 2 years ago. There's nobody out there to impress. And yet still there is some kind of need to really stick it someone who didn't like one of the games they did. I think they think they're schooling me somehow?
It's all so fucking bizarre. Even moreso because now they have wound so far back on themselves that they are using my own phrases against me. A grown adult essentially hitting back with "i know you are, i said you are, so what am i?"
This kind of thing is one of the reasons why i generally stay away from social media, because even when you surround yourself with people who have similar politics or - fuck - similar taste in computer games to you... There are still a bunch of folks who cannot just chill the fuck out and accept that people have different opinions, and that sometimes we'll poke fun at each other's wrong opinions, and that's totally fine, and it doesn't need to become a days-long debate. There's nothing to win here. It's so fucking boring.
I mean, that was pretty much my opinion of the game this dude was dead-set on defending: it's so fucking boring. Because it's tedious to read through game dialog that sounds like a social media thread. I'm not interested in "just having a conversation" or "engaging in a nuanced dialog" or whatever other coded phrase actually just means people snipping at one another ad nauseum. I suppose i shouldn't be surprised that someone who enjoyed a game that essentially gamifies online arguments is eager to get into online arguments about games.
It saddens me that people get some kind of thrill out of this, though. I understand some people have a desire to compete, but there are designated forums for competition. Why not join a debate club if you love to debate? Hell, go to law school, do it for a career. Or, fuck, become a software developer, half the fucking job is defending your work from the legions of smart alecs who think they could do it better. ("Why don't you just...") I deal with this argumentative bullshit all damn day. When i go home i got nothing left to prove, i just want to kick back and enjoy a bit of TV, a bit of gaming, a bit of writing. Why do people on the internet want to fuck it up?
It's on me, i suppose, for always turning on the "allow comments" checkbox, because i optimistically believe that the internet should be a place for free speech, and because once upon a time having comments open on your blog meant you would meet interesting people who were happy to share a bit of their lives with you and vice versa. Now, outside of LJ, it seems to invite sycophants, spammers and petulant bickerers who all seem blissfully unaware of how much they are making the internet suck. I think they think it's supposed to be that way, that it's normal.
Sometimes i read journal entries from my friends here discussing some of their less agreeable friends and family members, and it occurs to me that perhaps for some people this kind of endless squabbling is normal in their personal lives too. Even amongst people who don't face any serious hardship. Aren't they all tired? Isn't it the universal dream to spend your free time lazing under an umbrella sipping booze out of coconut? Who has the energy to fight all the time? Not me. Just let it go, man.
Alas, here i am, old, tired and out of touch.
Like, imagine you played a game, and you didn't like it, so you stopped playing and left a review - just like you've done for hundreds of other games - explaining why you didn't like it, both as a note to your future self and to provide a data point for other people to help them make their buying decision. Maybe you found the dialog pretentious, and mentioned it reminded you of another game whose dialog was also pretentious and that you persevered with anyway only to end up underwhelmed, so you didn't want to waste your time again. Imagine you drop in a quip about how completing that game might have felt more rewarding if you'd had a friend circle of chinstrokers who held the title in great acclaim, and that the people who appreciated that game would probably enjoy this one too.
And then you get a reply from a random person on the internet saying that your hateful attitude and lack of skill has prevented you from understanding the game's true meaning.
The irony of me commenting on the pretentiousness of a highbrow game only to have someone immediately drop in to condescendingly explain how i was too ignorant to understand the game properly was not lost on me, so i said so. Which led to that person coming back again, and again, and again - three days in a row now - each time going into even greater depth about how brilliant the game was and how i have lumped "literally everybody" who played it into a single group who i have unfairly mocked and onto whom i am projecting my own insecurities and bla bla bla... They seem to have finally arrived at a conclusion today that it is i, amw, the sanctimonious blowhard, who takes computer games far too seriously, and hates entire segments of the population, and clearly i must be this way because somebody hurt me. I mean. Okay?! And all this over a very tame dig at hipsters that i dropped into a two-paragraph review FOR A TOTALLY DIFFERENT FUCKING GAME.
Like, what possesses a person to see a computer game review - one of literally thousands, maybe tens of thousands, that are submitted every day - and decide that this is the crusade that must be fought?
Somebody is wrong on the internet!
The weird thing is that i really think this person believes that they truly are the enlightened party. They seem convinced that i am a close-minded bigot who has committed the cardinal sin of spreading hateful generalizations online. And it's like... bro. I wasn't the one who was scrolling through other people's reviews looking to pick a fight. When i see a review i disagree with, i just shrug and keep scrolling. Who are you white knighting for? Who fucking cares? Nobody is going to read the comment thread under a short review for an indie game that came out 2 years ago. There's nobody out there to impress. And yet still there is some kind of need to really stick it someone who didn't like one of the games they did. I think they think they're schooling me somehow?
It's all so fucking bizarre. Even moreso because now they have wound so far back on themselves that they are using my own phrases against me. A grown adult essentially hitting back with "i know you are, i said you are, so what am i?"
This kind of thing is one of the reasons why i generally stay away from social media, because even when you surround yourself with people who have similar politics or - fuck - similar taste in computer games to you... There are still a bunch of folks who cannot just chill the fuck out and accept that people have different opinions, and that sometimes we'll poke fun at each other's wrong opinions, and that's totally fine, and it doesn't need to become a days-long debate. There's nothing to win here. It's so fucking boring.
I mean, that was pretty much my opinion of the game this dude was dead-set on defending: it's so fucking boring. Because it's tedious to read through game dialog that sounds like a social media thread. I'm not interested in "just having a conversation" or "engaging in a nuanced dialog" or whatever other coded phrase actually just means people snipping at one another ad nauseum. I suppose i shouldn't be surprised that someone who enjoyed a game that essentially gamifies online arguments is eager to get into online arguments about games.
It saddens me that people get some kind of thrill out of this, though. I understand some people have a desire to compete, but there are designated forums for competition. Why not join a debate club if you love to debate? Hell, go to law school, do it for a career. Or, fuck, become a software developer, half the fucking job is defending your work from the legions of smart alecs who think they could do it better. ("Why don't you just...") I deal with this argumentative bullshit all damn day. When i go home i got nothing left to prove, i just want to kick back and enjoy a bit of TV, a bit of gaming, a bit of writing. Why do people on the internet want to fuck it up?
It's on me, i suppose, for always turning on the "allow comments" checkbox, because i optimistically believe that the internet should be a place for free speech, and because once upon a time having comments open on your blog meant you would meet interesting people who were happy to share a bit of their lives with you and vice versa. Now, outside of LJ, it seems to invite sycophants, spammers and petulant bickerers who all seem blissfully unaware of how much they are making the internet suck. I think they think it's supposed to be that way, that it's normal.
Sometimes i read journal entries from my friends here discussing some of their less agreeable friends and family members, and it occurs to me that perhaps for some people this kind of endless squabbling is normal in their personal lives too. Even amongst people who don't face any serious hardship. Aren't they all tired? Isn't it the universal dream to spend your free time lazing under an umbrella sipping booze out of coconut? Who has the energy to fight all the time? Not me. Just let it go, man.
Alas, here i am, old, tired and out of touch.